No new trial for Twardus

ALFRED — A York County Superior Court justice has denied, for a second time, a New Hampshire man’s motion for a new trial for the 2007 murder of his former fiancee.

In an eight-page decision dated Nov. 29, Justice G. Arthur Brennan denied Jason Twardus’ second motion for a new trial, stating that “nothing presented at the hearings on the two motions, considered cumulatively, would create a reasonable probability of a different result” if a new trial were held. Nor has confidence in the jury verdict been undermined by the information presented, Brennan wrote.

Twardus, 31, from Rochester, N.H., was found guilty in October 2010 for the murder of Kelly Gorham following a three-week jury trial. Gorham, a 30-year-old nursing student who lived in Alfred, disappeared in early August 2007. Her body was found Sept. 2, 2007, in a shallow grave on a remote, unmarked piece of property owned by Twardus’ father in Stewartstown, N.H.

Through his attorney, Twardus filed a motion for a new trial in January 2011. The motion claimed that new evidence had come to light since the trial — evidence that, the motion claimed, would likely have changed the outcome of the trial.

Justice Brennan disagreed, however, and denied the motion in July 2011.

In August, 2011, Twardus was sentenced to 38 years in prison.

In January of this year, Twardus filed a second motion for a new trial. His attorney, Daniel G. Lilley, cited new evidence pointing to the involvement of John Durfee in Gorham’s murder. Durfee, who was portrayed by the defense as an alternate suspect during the murder trial, allegedly made statements to a fellow inmate (while Durfee was incarcerated on an unrelated charge) indicating that he had been involved in Gorham’s murder and had helped bury her.

In addition, Lilley stated in the motion, another “alternate suspect,” Calvin DeGreenia, had been charged with felony assault for attempting to strangle his then-girlfriend. Investigators determined that Gorham had been strangled.

A hearing on the second motion was conducted over three days in April and May.

Durfee died in August of 2011 at the age of 67 and therefore was not able to confirm or deny the statements attributed to him by the fellow inmate. However, Brennan noted, “Mr. Durfee’s credibility was vigorously and thoroughly impeached at trial.” In addition, Durfee’s cell phone records indicate that in the days following Kelly Gorham’s disappearance he was more than 100 miles from the burial site.

Further, Brennan stated, during the trial, several witnesses positively identified Jason Twardus in a videotape from a convenience store near the burial site in northern New Hampshire. The surveillance tape was from the day Gorham failed to show up at work.

“I remain convinced that almost certainly the jury decided that Mr. Twardus was at the convenience store in northern New Hampshire on August 8, 2007,” Brennan wrote.

He concluded that nothing presented at the hearings on either of the motions, would probably change the result if a new trial were granted.